MONDAY, THE LAST MONDAY of my internship, Janice didn’t say a word to me. Didn’t look at me. Didn’t acknowledge me in any way. Because she knew. She had to have known. She’d seen the naked pictures of me that Rick had given her, and was therefore too embarrassed to have anything to do with that wicked Paige.

Either that or she was too busy preparing us for Display Day on Friday, the final event that marked our completion of our internship. Or maybe she’d seen the pictures and didn’t care. Doubtful, but a wannabe LOC librarian could hope. Because despite my inability to throw the youngest Cleary family member under Rick’s proverbial bus, no matter what Rose may or may not have on him, I still held on to a sliver of hope that I could land this librarian job. Call me crazy. In fact, please do. It could help soften the blow.

Or maybe Janice was caught up in the kerfuffle that had erupted across Capitol Hill this past week due to several upper and lower-echelon political names leaked from an anonymous prostitute’s little black book. The media nicknamed her Mademoiselle Goldfinch because of the yellow bird drawn at the top of the pages she’d leaked, and she’d included video surveillance and photos of those named on just one page. Including Riley.

He hadn’t shown his face since his red-faced explosion, but wow. I was beginning to wonder how many people really were who they said they were.

“The most important thing,” Janice was saying, “is that you include all of your accomplishments during these last six weeks with a smile on your face.” She eyed Charlotte next to me. “It shouldn’t be too hard for most of you.”

I glanced at Charlotte, who stared vacantly toward the front of the room, her face washed of any color. With a soft nudge under the table, I caught her eye to see if she was still with us. She wore her pain across her face and in her obvious limp she didn’t even try to hide anymore.

“I’ll go to the doctor when we’re done today,” she’d assured us first thing this morning. “Don’t even worry.”

Easier said than done. Nicole and I agreed to accompany her.

Charlotte’s gaze drifted past me toward Nicole on my other side, who dotted an i in her notebook with her Spongebob pen and a flourish. She’d taken detailed notes throughout Janice’s pep talk. Charlotte and I didn’t. Maybe that should tell us something about the level of importance this internship meant to us now. Had I already stopped caring since I knew the job would never be mine?

Actually, I wanted to take that back, the part about the level of importance this internship meant to us. I wasn’t the one who suffered through chronic pain and put off the doctor for as long as possible just to be here. This internship meant more to Charlotte than she let on.

And what did that say about me? Did I really want this job? At one time, I would have given up several organs for it, and now...things were different. For one, it seemed everywhere I went played Adele’s “Hello” as if it were some sort of psychic reminder for what I might begin to say if I called Her. It was a start. So was telling Sam about her, and he had wrapped me up in the most loving hug that had burst my heart wide open to the very real possibility that I had already fallen hard for him. For two, there were other libraries, some just as grand and historic as this one.

“Let’s take a fifteen-minute break,” Janice said. “If you would like, you may practice your presentations one-on-one with me in my office. The rest of you may practice in front of each other or finish preparing them.”

The rest of the interns released a collective exhale for fifteen minutes of freedom. The three of us stayed at our table while the other interns stood and stretched. We were all congregated in the House Members room where tables and chairs had already been set up along both sides. Summer afternoon sun poured in through the windows and lit the plush, red carpet with a soft glow. The carved wooden paneling on the walls stretched over our heads into an intricately patterned ceiling that took my breath away. Almost every ceiling at the LOC deserved a round of applause for their ornate designs. They gave me a neck cramp, but it was so worth it.

A blush spread between Nicole’s freckles. “I don’t want to practice in front of you two until Friday.”

“Fine.” Charlotte leaned back in her chair, wincing. “I’m just going to wing mine.”

Nicole frowned in disapproval then turned her gaze on me. “Do you need to practice, Paige? Is yours finished?”

“It’s done.” I’d been writing it in my head for the last six weeks, right down to the exact wording, until I had it engrained inside my head. I’d even dreamed about it. For good measure, I’d transcribed it onto paper, but I knew I wouldn’t need to look at it again because it came from the heart.

So did practicing it with Sam. He had been acting strange since he’d returned from his top-secret man stuff on Saturday, closed-off and moody one instant, and in the next, kissing me, touching me, like I was his source of oxygen. And when he looked at me with those baby blue eyes that charged my heart, I felt...electrified. Plugged in somehow to a different way of seeing the world, one not so heavy with shame. A lighter, better way that fixed a smile on my face when I thought about him, that made me miss him even when we were together.

But I wasn’t so sure his shifting moods were because this was the last week of my internship and quite possibly our waning time together. Something was eating at him, and I didn’t think all of it had to do with his brother, either.

It probably wasn’t the same thing that weighed heavily on the back of my mind. Maybe I’d ruined my own future by refusing to give in to Rick’s demands, or maybe I did exactly what I needed to—hang in limbo for a while so I could allow myself to look over my shoulder into the past. Maybe it was time to realize that because I had the courage to sacrifice my dream job, I had the lady balls to call Her.

What would she sound like? Was she funny and smart? Did she like to read? Oh the horror, what if she didn’t? But most importantly, would she love me as much as I’d always loved her?

My eyes stung at the memory of her kicks and somersaults, of crossing my arms protectively over my swollen belly every night while I slept, of her first red-faced cry.

“I’ll be back,” I said, my voice thick, and stood.

Nicole stopped scribbling in her notebook long enough to say, “We’ll make sure we’re not here by then.”

Charlotte snorted. “I think my sarcasm is running off on you. That’s my line.”

I walked away quickly, wishing I could scoop them both into my pocket forever. I would miss them. Terribly. And Sam... If I left here, if I left him, I hated to think what it might do to me. Unless I somehow convinced him to come to Wichita and meet Her. And stay there. With me.

“Paige?”

So lost in my own thoughts, it seemed to take forever for me to turn around and register who was speaking.

Janice stood outside the House Members room, her entire face made up of thin, straight lines and a hard glint inside her eyes. “May I see you in my office?”